Maryland Department of Natural Resources Secretary Josh Kurtz and Howard County Executive Calvin Ball plant trees in March. Maryland DNR photo.
Maryland has just celebrated its own Arbor Day, well ahead of the national celebration on the last Friday of the month. This year, I’m glad to say we are catching up on an important initiative that will impact our future.
Maryland made an ambitious commitment with the 5 Million Trees Initiative in 2021, and last year we celebrated the milestone of one million trees in the ground. More than 500,000 trees were planted in 2024.
This spring we’re in the midst of our most prolific tree-planting season since the initiative started. In March alone, the Maryland Forest Service planted 197,000 new trees–a new one month record. So far, this year’s new plantings amount to about 500 acres of newly forested lands.
These new trees will help improve the health of our communities, sequester carbon, purify our air and water, and bolster wildlife populations. The plantings are an investment in Maryland’s future, and the new trees offer an ever-growing return for generations.
The department has also created a new Community Forestry division that will deliver more effective local coordination for programs like TreeMendous, TreeCity USA, and Gift of Trees. Our Ayton state tree nursery brought on additional staff this winter and is ramping up production to help meet the ambitious goal.
DNR is incorporating tree-planting as a central element in almost every restoration initiative on public and private lands, together with our fellow state agencies and local partners. With the recent selection of the first projects to be funded under the Whole Watershed Act, we’re looking forward to working with partners to improve tree canopies in the five target watersheds.
In March, I had the pleasure of joining Howard County Executive Calvin Ball for a tour of state lands near the county’s Belmont Manor and Historic Park, which is one of the sites where state Forest Service staff and county workers recently planted about 46,000 new trees in the county. Plans are in place for Howard County to add 100,000 new trees this year in partnership with DNR throughout the Patuxent and Patapsco watersheds.
This month, DNR will judge the entries submitted for our annual Fifth Grade Arbor Day Poster Contest where students from around the state create art designed to emphasize the value of trees. DNR will help plant trees at the schools where the contest winners attend. But the truth is we all win when younger generations are learning the vital natural lessons about the benefits of trees.
Among those lessons, as the old saying goes, is that the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, but the second best time is now. Spring is a great time for tree planting, so we’re also encouraging residents to plant their own trees and consider reporting them in the state’s tree planting tracking tool run by the Maryland Department of the Environment. With strong partnerships in place, dedicated staff, and your help–I know we can reach the 5 million tree planting goal in Maryland by 2031.
